Welcome to the New
Space Dock 13!
Helping Authors Write Weird, Bizarre, Absurd, Psychedelic Horror-Fantasy Since 1996!
(We've Moved & Changed URLs; Space Dock 13 is now EelKat.com)
(We are also novel-writing-tips.com, a-pink-unicorn.com, & of course are still SpaceDock13.com)
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OMG!
We beat our traffic record for this website!
On December 23, 2019 THIS PAGE got 300,000 views in a single day!
And here's another page to answer how and why that page got so much traffic.
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I Now Hold The World Record
For The Highest Level Ever Achieved in Witcher 3!!
If This Video Is Active, I'm Live Streaming Right Now...
WARNING:
Avallac'h & Ciri Shipping Happens Daily In My Cult of Avallac'h Stream
(This seems to piss people off so we seem to need to provide a warning about it)
Vanilla Avallac'h vs Modded Avallac'h
Vanilla Avallac'h vs Modded Avallac'h
If you are Mormon, Mason, Jewish, or Zoroastrian, take a close look at his gambeson and see what you see. If you are Mormon, Mason, Jewish, or Zoroastrian, you'll see it and you'll know exactly what it means. On the other hand if you are a Gentile or an Infidel, you won't have a clue.
>>Both images on the left from May 2018, the 1st Avallac'h Playthrough
Vanilla Avallac'h has black hair and eyebrows turned grey, and has an appalling LOD of 5 and draw distance of 7, and has no hairworks effects, no wind effects, and while his 3d model & texture files have wrinkles, scars, bruises, bug bites, moles, and veins, you can't see them on the vanilla settings.
Also while Avallac'h's clothen had a RedCloth file, it had very low grade settings/pollies causing the details of the cloth weave, seam stitches, and embroidery to be blurry.
Vanilla Avallac'h has pupils that react to light, like all other characters in the game.
>>Both images on the right from September 15, 2020, the 3rd Avallac'h Playthrough
Modded Avallac'h has a 5,000 LOD and draw distance, resulting in wrinkles, scars, bruises, bug bites, moles, and veins on his skin can now be seen. This also revealed that he has a fine scar down the side of his nose and one over his eyebrow, both were not visible at all with the vanilla LOD settings.
Hairworks and wind effects have been added to his hair.
While we are talking about his hair... notice that he wears payot. If you don't know what payot are or why a man would have them... Google will help you. It brands him as Hasidic.
His hair and eyebrows are changed to blond (as described in the novels), his skin has been lightened several shades (again to match novel descriptions), and he has new texture files for his eyes to make them pale ice aquamarine with pink pupils, as described in the novels.
Modded Avallac'h has pupils that are frozen into tiny pinpricks and never grow or retract with light changes, matching the information we were told about him having suffered severe nerve damage which caused him to have tiny frozen pupils that did not react to light.
Because the file which changes a character's pupils, is NOT connected to their eye file, but rather is connected to their shadow file and changes not only the size and shape of pupils in different lights, it also changes the shadows on their face, and changes the intensity of their makeup.
The result of changing this file, is that shadows on Avallac'h's face are now fainter and his vanilla very dark eyeshadow is now many shades much lighter.
This results in a bright highlight on his cheekbones, making them much paler, and has caused an illusion that his cheekbones are even sharper than before, even though no change was made to his 3D model bone structure... i is simply a result of less shadow below his cheekbones with brighter highlight over them, and fewer shadows around his eyes.
I increased the depth of Avallac'h's RedCloth file (edited the 3D model to make ridged details a deeper depth) and increased settings/pollies causing the details of the cloth weave, seam stitches, and embroidery to be much sharper and more noticable, making the cloth look more real.
And speaking of the cloth looking more real... if you are a Gentile or an Infidel, you won't have a clue what it was I mentioned earlier, so let me point it out... on the beast of his gambeson, right over the nipple, there are slash marks that are stitched into a very specific pattern/design... this marks Avallac'h as a very high ranking priest, one who has access to the deepest, inner circles of the Temple, on par with The Levite in the Bible, it also tells us that he is a virgin and living celibate lifestyle because of his religious rank.
On their own, the slash marks do not identify a specific religion, but one of 5 religions. However, that, with the payot, and the fact that he covers his head when going outside, brands him as a Hasidic Jew.
We further know that in the novels, ALL Elves are Jewish, and the masque of the Elves during the Human invasion, was an outright retelling of the Holocaust, and Avallac'h spoke an ancient dialect of Hebrew and was unable to understand most Humans as he spoke none of the common tongues.
Raise your hand if you ACTUALLY KNOW what Manna is? Sephiroth? Sackcloth and ashes? Golems? The Tree of Life? The Pentagram? Tzitzit? Are you able to explain ANY of those things and what they are, when you encounter them in quests in the game?
Can you explain WHY Geralt meditates on a prayer rug facing East?
Explain to me WHY after her grandmother dies, Ciri shreds her cloths, starts wearing sackcloth, and rolls her golden blond hair in ashes to turn it into dreadlocks, resulting her becoming known as "the ashen haired maid"?
When the game shows you Avallac'h naked in Kaer Morhen, can you read the Hebrew writing tattoo across his chest and abdomen? Do you know what the symbols on his tattoos mean?
After having watched more than 5,000 playthroughs of Witcher 3 on Twitch, I'm continually amazed at how few people ever recognize the plethora of openly Jewish characters and miss the HUNDREDS of Holocaust reference easter eggs that flood every segment of the game.
And now that the books are becoming popular, after 40 years of being ignored by the bulk of society... it likewise amazes me, how many people are so clueless about the Holocaust and what happened to the Jews in Poland, that they read the Witcher novels with blind eyes, and completely miss that the Gnomes and Elves are blatantly Jewish, while the Humans are blatantly Nazi, and the mass murder of millions of Jewish Gnomes and Elves at the hands of their Nazi Human invaders, is an outright retelling of the events of real world history.... of that happened just 80 years ago.
Our world is in a pitiful state if the so recent mass murder of 20 million is so easily forgotten, so soon.
If you know nothing about the Holocaust, you REALLY shouldn't play this game or read the novels it was based on, because you'll completely miss the message they send. It'll go right over your head.
Spend a year or two doing some massive research into the Holocaust, especially what happened in Poland, and THEN play the game and read the novels, and THEN remember that the author who created this: was a Polish Jew who as a small child, saw his friends and family murdered, and then you'll understand why he wrote what he wrote.
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The Princess Bride predicting Covid-19?
Avallac'h's a Good Tutor?
Of What? How to Better Bed Kings?
EXTREME SPOILER WARNING!
Please be aware that nearly every page on this website contains spoilers to something. I talk about a lot of fandoms, and go into great detail analyzing them when I do. If I am talking about The Witcher series, InuYasha, Disney Ducks, the Quaraun series, or any other fandom, you WILL encounter spoilers about it.
If the book does not bring in
enough revenue to cover the advance,
do I have to return the advance?
Home
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Publishing Methods
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Return the Advance?
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"Let's say I have a book published by a well-known press and received an advance against royalties - if the book does not bring in enough revenue to cover the advance - do I have to return the advance - ever - down the line. (e.g. $20,000 advance, the book "nets" $10,000 - am I going to owe them $10,000 back??)" |
Will you ever have to return the advance on your royalties? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There is no standard one size fits all answer to this question, because every publisher has their own rules and by-lines governing what they do and how they do it.
For most publishers, no, you would not have to return the advance. But than again, most publishers aren't going to give you an advance to begin with. Authors getting advances as a standard practice is one of those great big urban myths drummed up by Hollywood movies. In real life it rarely happens, unless you've already sold 3 or more best sellers. First time authors are rarely going to see an advance, and only authors with a reputation for consistently producing bestsellers get large advances.
When you see news reports talking about giant advances being given to new authors - remember that the REASON these reports became news, was because it is such a rare event that news reporters jump on the story. For every $10,000 advance there are 3million authors who did not receive a penny of advance. Never forget that. It's important to remember, because if you get hung up on making money, you'll never succeed as an author.
I remember reading an author interview once. It was with Dr. Tim LaHaye the author of Left Behind. The interviewer asked him what it felt like to become an overnight success with his first book. The author asked "What do you mean, my first book? I don't think anyone even knows my first book." The interviewer became puzzled and asked "Isn't Left Behind your first book?" The author said, "No, I have 26 other books already. This one only became famous because it was picked up for a movie." He was a minister and had written tons of books that were only being circulated through small Christian book distributors. It was a fluke that his Left Behind book got picked up by a larger book store and ended up in the hands of a movie producer. Suddenly he was getting requests from publishers to turn the book into a series, with those requests were offers of advances against royalties. Publishers began bidding against each other. He had choice which offer was best for him. He was only offered an advance because publishers wanted to jump in and get the rights to the series before the movie hit the theaters.
That's the way advances work in the real world. Don't believe the mumbu-jumbo you see on TVShows like Murder She Wrote. You as a first time author are not likely to get any advance at all, so don't plan on it, or you'll be crushed when the reality of this fact hits you.
But let's say you are one of the flukes and yes, you do get an advance. Okay. Great! Good for you! You are doing something right, because you have got the support of a publisher who thinks you are the next J.K.Rowlings.
Well, before we even look at whether or not you'll need to return the advance, let's take a look at the advance. In your example you toss out a number of $20,000.
Let's take a gander at the #s you quoted: S20,000 advance on royalties? Uhm, yeah, no. You will not be seeing that from any publisher, not even the biggest ones, not unless you are Steven King, and even than maybe not. (Remember that most of Stephen King's money comes from movie royalties not book royalties!)
Standard advance for the average first time author with the average well known large-press is $1,000 to $5,000. Most publishers figure the advance out low, estimating it so that you'll end up receiving about $1,000 to $2,000 extra via royalties, approximately 6 months to a year after the book is published.
INSIDER SECRET: This is a marketing scheme used by publishers. The way they figure it, by the time you start receiving royalties, you should have another manuscript ready to send them, and IF your first book sold enough to reach the point of earning royalties (many don't) that means you are a good risk, for them to publish another book by you.
This figuring advances to come to a $1,000 less than your total sales earnings, ensures they'll have an excuse to contact you again. When they send out that royalty check, they are hoping you'll be finishing up your next manuscript and be looking to send it out, and you'll send it to them instead of going elsewhere.
It is for this very reason, that you will rarely ever have to worry about needing to return the advance to the publisher, because publishers rarely give out advances that are as high as the expected sales.
Now that you understand the logic behind how much a publisher decides to offer you as an advance, let's now give you a swift kick in the pants to knock you off your fantasy cloud of author income delusions.
REALITY CHECK: The average large-press traditionally published fiction author makes $2,000 to $7,000 in the lifetime of their book. This is why the average "full time author" writes 4 books a year in order to earn the below poverty level income of $24,000 a year. This is also why the average full-time author also works a "regular" part time job in order to earn enough income to support their family.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The average large-press traditionally published fiction author makes $2,000 to $7,000 in the lifetime of their book. This is why the average "full time author" writes 4 books a year in order to earn the below poverty level income of $24,000 a year. This is also why the average full-time author also works a "regular" part time job in order to earn enough income to support their family.
Has it sunk in yet?
No?
Let's get the dancing bananas to shout it out one more time to make sure you hear it:
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The average large-press traditionally published fiction author makes $2,000 to $7,000 in the lifetime of their book. This is why the average "full time author" writes 4 books a year in order to earn the below poverty level income of $24,000 a year. This is also why the average full-time author also works a "regular" part time job in order to earn enough income to support their family.
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It all depends on what it says in the contract you signed. This is why you need to read every line of your contract very carefully, than have several of your friends read it, and than have your lawyer read it. All 30 or 40 or so pages of it. You want to have a great big heart to heart with everybody who read it to find out what they think it means, (they will bring up issues you had not thought of) and than have a great big heart to heart with your lawyer to find out what it actually means, and ask all your questions, and ask all the questions your friends brought up. Finally you want your lawyer and the publisher's lawyers to get together and have themselves a great big pow-wow to make sure your lawyer interpreted everything the way their lawyers did. And last of all you want to come right out and ask your editor (with the publishing house) what the publisher's policy on returning advances is. This is the only way you'll know for sure.
Keep in mind you'll have to repeat this for every single contract even if you use the same publisher multiple times.
The End?
No, you have NOT reached the end of this article! What you have reached is the end of what it currently online. The rest is coming, hopefully it'll be on here in a day or three so keep checking back. I will remove this message at the same time I put the rest of it online.
As my long time readers will already
know a server crash took down most of the old free-hosted site on June
4, 2013 (which was online since 1997 and had reached 6,000+ pages).
Thankfully everything was saved on a separate hard-drive and the site is
being rebuilt with a new host and for the first time on it's own
domain. YAY!
I am currently moving all 6,000 questions&answer articles to this site one page at a time, at a rate of about 4 to 7 new pages being added each day, so be patient. Not all links are yet clickable. This process started on September 2, 2013 and will be ongoing at least through to January 2014. (And it may be well into 2017 before all 6,000 pages will be back online if I continue at this rate of 5 a day.)
or head to:
Big House | Small Press | Self-Publishing | Indie Press | Vanity Press | E-Publishing
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